A World to Explore

ICELAND – As Lindsey and Travis were leaving Iceland, the Keck students were arriving. The Keck Geology Consortium consists of 18 schools whose geology departments are dedicated to providing undergraduates with high-quality research experiences. Funded through NSF and contributions from its members, the Keck Consortium supports several research projects each year. This year, I’m working with Dr. Brennan Jordan (University of South Dakota) on a 6-student Keck project in the West Fjords of Iceland. We’ll spend three weeks working in the field, then return to Wooster for another week in the lab.

After spending a day in Reykjavik recovering from jet lag and getting to know each other, we left for a four-day field trip to south central Iceland. The field trip serves several purposes: (1) build a sense of community, (2) get a sense for the provisions we’ll need in the field, and (3) observe geologic features that might be exposed in our study site.

We started by touring the Reykjanes Peninsula, visiting some sites that Travis and Lindsey had just seen. We observed marine pillow basalts, tuffs with embedded blocks, a dike feeding a lava flow, and lots of fissures. We ended the first day at Thingvellir and had our first taste of the dehydrated meals that will be our dinners for the time we’re in our field area. We all agreed that they tasted better and were more filling than we expected!

The second day began at an amazing exposure of subglacial pillow basalts. We almost didn’t get to visit this site because a film crew was shooting a car commercial at the exposure (complete with a thundering herd of Icelandic horses). Fortunately, they were kind enough to let us in for a short time, and it was worth it! Afterward, we visited Geysir (the original) and Gullfoss, where we saw glacial striations and a stunning waterfall.

Amazing pillow basalts near Thingvellir.

The second day ended (and the third day began) at Landmannalauger, a popular hot spring destination (I’ll let the Keck students tell you about their hot spring experience). Landmannalauger is surrounded by rhyolite slopes that form the walls of a giant caldera. Just behind the campground, a hiking trail winds its way over a blocky rhyolite flow, where we observed lots of flow banding, obsidian, and pumice altered to a beautiful green color. On the way out of Landmannalauger, we saw a few more rhyolite flows, a gorgeous cinder cone, and some Hekla tephra. You may recall that Hekla was recently reported in the news as “ready to erupt.” Rest assured that all was peaceful when we were there.

Before we returned to Reykjavik on the last day, we made a couple of quick stops in south-central Iceland near Dyrholaey to see spectacular columnar joints.

Dike intruding through tuff on the southern Reykjanes peninsula.

Back in Reykjavik, we caught our flight to Isafjordur in the West Fjords. We’re all eager and ready to go to our field site. Having seen a wide range of geologic features, we feel prepared for whatever our field site offers. Tomorrow, we’ll take a boat to the site, one of the most remote places in Iceland. Look for another post when we return from the field. Wish us luck!

*Sorry about the lack of pictures! If you know a way to post pictures to a blog from the iPad, please let me know! As an alternative, feel free to check out the pictures that I’ve posted on my twitter feed: twitter.com/meagenpollock